One of a Kind
by KrazzeeAJ1701
Summary: 5 conversations with his captain that don't surprise him. And 1 that does. FemKirk/Scotty, Mild STB spoilers.


I don't really know how this happened, just that the muse demanded some FemKirk/Scotty.

* * *

1

"So, Admiral Archer's prized beagle," came a voice from Scotty's left. "Of all the things you could've beamed out, you picked Admiral Archer's prized beagle. His father gave him that dog."

"So he said. I was trying ta prove a point, lass."

"Well, you certainly did that. Too bad it got you sent to Hoth," Jim Kirk smiled as she slid into the seat next to him. He had no idea how she found him in his local but he was glad to see her.

"I was thinking Gethen with less people, actually," he told her with a laugh.

"From 'The Left Hand of Darkness'? I thought I was the only one who liked that book," the newly promoted captain chuckled before getting the barman's attention, pointing to Scotty's drink then holding up two fingers.

"Nope. I had a lot o' time ta read on Delta Vega," Scotty chuckled. Once he blew through his technical journals, he started reading through a list of things his sister sent him. _The Left Hand of Darkness_ was one of the first books he read from the list.

"I'm sure you did," she smiled and he stared. For a long moment, she didn't say anything, just downed the drink that was placed in front of her and motioned for another. If he didn't already respect the loony lass who showed up and dragged him along on her adventure to save the world, he certainly respected her now. Scotch wasn't for the faint of heart and she didn't even seem fazed by it. "You know, if you hadn't ended up at Outpost Hunter, I never would've made it back to the Enterprise and we'd all be dead."

"I'm glad my six months in that frozen hell were good for something," he said. "Cannae wait 'til they send me back." Kirk gave him a look with those bright blue eyes of hers, one of which was framed by a nasty bruise that she refused to let Doctor McCoy fix. "Archer still hates me, lass."

"Doesn't hate me and I can be pretty convincing when I have my mind set on something," Kirk smiled. "For instance, Montgomery Scott as the chief engineer on the Enterprise just sounds cool."

"Only person who could make that call is the captain and ye ain't him," Scotty said before he looked at her. Jim looked at her drink and the bar but she wouldn't meet his gaze. "They're not."

"Oh, but they are," she sighed. "Pike made an argument for me to keep the Enterprise and, for some reason, FleetPR thinks it's a good move, so the Admiralty signed off on it."

"Ye dinnae sound happy about it, lass," he said. As a matter of fact, she sounded disappointed.

"Three years I've been getting nothing but bullshit from just about everybody for being born a Kirk and now they wanna use my name to recruit hapless idiots into joining the chaos. Chris is in a wheelchair, Spock's planet and mother are gone and seventy-three percent of my class is dead, so no, I'm not happy about being handed a ship for the PR. I wanted to _earn_ it. I wanted to work my way up and prove I could hack it. Prove that I was more than just 'George Kirk's wayward daughter'."

"First, there's nothing wrong with being headstrong, lass. If the stories are to be believed, ye're more like yer da then ye aren't. Second, ye did prove that ye could _hack it_. Ye saved the world."

"There are over a thousand people on that ship, _I_ didn't do anything. _We_ saved the world and I don't see them handing out promotions and ships to the rest of you."

"Okay, we saved the world but ye were the one in command. Ye and Spock went over to that ship to bring it down and…"

"And Spock ranks me. At least, he used to, and he didn't get offered a command of his own. They're giving me a ship because of my name and everyone knows it. I get to go from being an idiot who only got into Starfleet because of nepotism to the child captain with a shiny new toy," Kirk said bitterly before ordering another drink. Unlike the other one, she drank this one slower, like she needed time to collect her thoughts. "It's just wrong, Scotty. It all just feels wrong."

"Ye wanna know what I think, lass?" Scotty asked. Kirk looked at him before she shrugged. "I think ye're scared. Ye're scared that ye're gonna fail but ye're even more scared that ye won't."

"That's ridiculous," she scoffed.

"But it's the truth," he pointed out. "Even with all the attention you got at the Academy, and ye got _a lot_ of attention, ye still had some ambiguity. Now, all eyes are on ye. If ye fail, people will just chalk it up to ye not being ready but when ye succeed, and ye will succeed because yer stubborn, they'll expect ye ta keep succeeding. It won't be about yer da or Pike, it'll be about ye. And that's what scares ye."

"That's… very insightful," Kirk chuckled.

"Wisdom born out of experience," Scotty smiled.

"Well," she smiled, holding her glass up a little, "here's to handling my new responsibilities with as much grace and humility as you do."

It was a jab at him, albeit a little one, but he couldn't bring himself to be even remotely offended about it. He was good at what he does, he knew he was good and he had no problem with making sure everyone else knew it too. Kirk wasn't as vocal about her accomplishments, mainly because people would just attribute them to her father. It was a shame too because she had far more commendations than officers with twice as much time in Starfleet as, and that was before the Narada.

"I'll drink to that," he tapped his drink against her before he gave her a look. "How'd ye find me, anyway?"

"I asked Keenser."

"Ye got him to talk to ye? How?" Scotty spent six months with the Roylan engineer and he could barely get him to stay more than one word at a time, literally.

"Got him?" Kirk asked with a chuckle. "My father recruited Keenser before I was born, he's been looking for me for years. Little guy showed up at my dorm and wouldn't stop talking."

* * *

2

"Don't ye dare, lassie," Scotty told his captain as she tried to push herself up.

"I'm fine. Probably just a concussion," she mumbled as she tried to ignore his warning, then she froze. "Nope." Kirk leaned back against the bulkhead. "That's not gonna happen. Definitely a concussion."

"How do ye know that?" he asked quietly.

"Contrary to popular belief, I do listen to Bones," she said with a small smile. "He taught me a bunch of stuff when we were roommates back in the Academy. Well, it was more like he was complaining about something and I asked him to teach me stuff just to shut him up. The outcome was still the same. Are you okay?"

"Yea, I'm fine," he told her, and he was. Scotty had been working on some weapons upgrades and offered to show them to Kirk after lunch. It couldn't have been more than ten seconds when the turbolift stopped, hard. Kirk, too busy trying to shield him, hit her head.

"Good," Kirk sighed.

"Ye know, ye shouldn't've done that, right?"

"What?"

"Shield me. I would've been fine," Scotty said.

"Or you would've been knocked out too," she pointed out. "The ship can function without me, it can't function without you."

"Is that what ye think?" he asked her. She was probably the first captain he's ever heard say something like that. Starfleet had this rule somewhere about the captain being the most important person on the ship but he had a feeling that Kirk never really brought into that. Not with her father, and Captain Robau before that, sacrificing themselves for everyone else.

"It's true. There's a whole list of people, including you, authorized to take command of this ship if something happens to me. But there's nobody, and I do mean nobody, on this ship who knows her like you do. Not even Keenser," Kirk told him. He had to admit she had a point, mostly.

"Ye're not a half bad engineer, lassie, and I bet ye know just as much about the Enterprise as I do," Scotty said.

Her eyes widened before she caught herself, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ye know that I know that ye're not as clueless as ye pretend to be, especially about this ship, right? Ye can fool a lot of people but ye cannae fool me."

"I suppose the Enterprise isn't the only girl you have figured out. How long have you known?"

"Honestly?" he asked. She gave him a reluctant nod. "When ye found me in Glasgow."

Despite her behavior to the contrary, Jim Kirk was a genius and she had the aptitude scores to prove it. According to her service record, she spent a good chunk of her first year at the academy testing out of technical classes before spending her first training cruise with the Republic's engineering team instead of with the tactical department. Scotty had first suspected that something was up when he talked to her about a bunch of repairs after the Narada showed up and she wasn't completely lost. In watching her, he came to realize, which McCoy all but confirmed, that Kirk hid her intelligence.

If he had to guess, part of it had to do with not appearing arrogant, as she's often accused of being. The other, more important, part went back her family. Her brother is a biologist with multiple doctorates and her mother was still serving in the fleet as one of the top stellar cartographers. Kirk spent –and still spends- a lot of time playing the dumb screw-up and Scotty's almost certain that it's an attempt to give her family an actual reason to avoid her instead of hating her for living when her father didn't.

"That was almost a whole year ago," she said.

"I know. It's just… ta have a conversation with Keenser meant that you either deciphered his mannerisms or ye speak Roylan, neither of which is easy." She gave him a look but didn't offer an explanation. "Ye're not gonna tell me, Captain?"

"I can't reveal all my secrets, Mister Scott."

"Not one? Ye know, ta keep yerself from falling asleep."

"I'm sure there are plenty of other topics that'll keep me awake," Kirk smiled. "Like Lieutenant Romaine, perhaps?"

"What about her?" he asked.

"You like her," Kirk said. Mira Romaine was an archive specialist that joined the Enterprise's crew during their last resupply. Scotty's had lunch with her a few times but they were probably more suited to being friends than anything else.

"She's nice," Scotty shrugged.

"I know."

"And she's brilliant."

"Know that too. I think it's a good thing, Scotty. You need to loosen up."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That three months ago, I had to order you to take leave… on Risa. _Risa_. Then, you spent the whole time reading technical journals and checking on the ship instead of interacting with the dozen or so people who kept trying to flirt with you," she said.

"We can't all be you, lass," he said before he could think better of it. "I dinnae mean ta imply that ye're a… uh.."

"A slut?"

"I dinnae…"

"You're gonna have to try harder if you want me to be hurt by that. I've been called much worse as far back as I could remember, I'm practically numb to it," Kirk said. He wanted to believe her, he really did, but he could tell that he hurt her feelings. "The point I was trying to make was that you seem happier, that's all. And a happy chief engineer means a happy ship."

"I thought the saying was about a happy captain and a happy ship?" Scotty asked.

"I'm always happy," she smiled.

"No. Ye're always pretending ta be happy. There's a difference, lass."

"Mister Scott," Spock over comms before she had the chance to say anything.

"We're here, sir," Scotty replied.

"We have broken through the electromagnetic distortion and are preparing to beam you to transporter room two. Do not move," the half-Vulcan told them.

Kirk chuckled, "Not sure where he's expecting us to go."

* * *

3

"Are ye supposed ta be up here, lass?" Scotty asked with a raised eyebrow at the figure that he spotted leaning against one of the consoles.

"Bones told me to get some rest but he never specified where. I probably got an hour before someone figures out that I'm not on the surface anymore," she chuckled.

He knew McCoy released her from the hospital but this was the last place he expected to see her. And, to be frank, Kirk looked like utter crap. Her usually tan skin was pale, her dark blonde hair hung messily over one shoulder and she looked a couple kilos lighter. Given what happened to her, and the ship, last month, she looked better than most people would have. Then again, anyone else in the universe would be dead right now.

"I could always tell him where ye are," he reminded the woman who looked as tired as he felt as he moved to stand next to her.

"You never tell anyone that I come down here, Scotty," she pouted. After he told her that he knew she wasn't an idiot, Scotty would often find the Enterprise's captain helping with the grunt work when she was bored. He never felt the need to talk about it, not even with her.

"That was before ye thought it was a good idea ta go into the bloody warp core."

After a bombing at the Kelvin Memorial Archive, all the commanding officers in the area were pulled into an emergency meeting. Because Jim got herself into trouble with the brass, Pike was in command of the Enterprise and Jim there as his XO. Midway through the meeting, a jumpship dropped in, killed a bunch of people, including Pike, before the pilot, Commander John Harrison, beamed out.

Because she considered Pike family, Kirk jumped at the chance to bring his killer in. Their orders were to shoot some experimental torpedoes at the province where Harrison was hiding, despite the fact that it was on Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld. Scotty, unable to scan the weapons, refused to sign for them and, after a short but heated conversation with Kirk, resigned his duties. It hurt to walk away from the ship. It hurt even more to walk away from his captain. She was his friend and she was in pain but, as much as he wanted to have her back, right was right and wrong was wrong.

It was a bloody good thing he wasn't on the ship because she called him the next day with an apology, conceding that he was right and asked him to check out some coordinates. What he found changed their whole mission from capturing a fugitive to trying outrun Admiral Marcus back to Earth. The short version; they got a curb stomp level arse whooping.

The whole mess ended with the Enterprise falling out of the sky over Earth and Jim going into the warp core -without any gear- to realign the bloody thing. Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Spock couldn't do anything but watch as she leaned against the glass inside containment, took solace in the fact that she saved them all, then stopped breathing.

The only reason she was alive now was because Harrison was actually Khan, a 300-year-old Augment from the Eugenics Wars with healing properties in his blood and McCoy was crazier than they all realized. The doctor tried to explain everything to them but Scotty didn't really hear anything outside the fact Khan's blood might bring Kirk back from the dead. After two weeks in a coma and another two weeks under close observation, here she was.

"Good idea?" Kirk gave him a look. "Because dying by radiation poisoning is how I wanted to go out."

"Ye knew bloody well what would've happened if ye went in there and ye did it anyway," the engineer said.

"The ship was falling out of the sky. I had to do something."

"Ye dinnae think I know that? I was here too. I would've come up with a solution, lass, that's what I do," Scotty said, louder than he intended. He'd been running that day through his mind over and over, trying to find a different outcome but he wasn't having as much luck as he wished.

"There wasn't time and you know it," she said, her tone and stance defensive. Depending on who's been allowed to see her since she woke up from that bloody coma, she's probably had to explain her actions a dozen times over. "You're not mad that I went in there, you're mad that I knocked you out and didn't let you do it."

"Ye're not the first bonnie lass ta drop me on my arse and I doubt ye'll be the last. My problem is that ye died," he admitted. "Ye died on me… on all of us. I'm the one that pulled yer lifeless body outta there. I took ye ta the medbay. I watched… I watched Spock come undone and Leonard breakdown. I watched Nyota cry and Pavel age and Hikaru shut everyone out. Every single person on this ship died a little when ye did and now ye're walking around like it was nothing. Like it dinnae matter."

"You just called me pretty," Kirk said with a smile.

"That's all ye got outta what I said?" Scotty asked, exasperated.

"Well, Bones already told me the rest. I just didn't know you thought I was 'bonnie'," she chuckled.

"Jim."

"You think I'm pretty and you called me 'Jim'. Am I still in a coma?"

While McCoy only ever calls her 'Jim' and Spock uses the diminutive when off duty, Scotty usually refers to her as 'Captain', 'Kirk', or 'lass.' It wasn't that he didn't have her permission to use her preferred moniker, he did, it just never felt right to call her 'Jim'. At least, it didn't feel right until they started this conversation.

"That's not funny," he sighed.

"I thought it was funny."

"Ye would."

"And here I thought Spock was the only with the pouty thing down. Look, if you think I'm gonna apologize for saving your lives, you're all crazier than me. My idea of family was a brother that blamed me for his father's death and a mother that hated me. Then Chris showed up and dared me to be better. Bones goes mother hen on me. Uhura never lets me get away with anything. Sulu's my adventure twin. Chekov's the little brother I wanna set a good example for. Spock makes me think. You… you hold all of us, but especially me, to a higher standard. I'm a better person because of that. I'm better because of all of you, that's why I went in there. I wasn't trying to be the hero, I was trying to save the only family I've ever had from the mess I made."

"Ye dinnae…"

"I walked us all into a trap, Scotty."

"Lass, it was a trap set up by the bloody commander o' Starfleet, who also happened ta be Pike's mentor. Ye had no reason not ta trust Marcus."

"Yes, I did. Spock warned me. Bones warned me. You… you stood right over there," she pointed across the room, "and warned me. I ignored all of you and I got forty-seven people under my command killed and who knows how many on the ground." Jim let out a sigh and ran her hand over her face.

For the first time in a long time, Scotty could see the weariness that practically clung to her and he could hear the heartbreak in her voice. He remembered, as he closed the small distance between them and forced Jim to look up at him, that she was still young, maybe even too young for all this crap. They gave her a ship but nobody ever really taught her what to do with it. Pike was working on it but now he was dead and she seemed lost without him. They were all a little lost without him.

"First, ye dinnae kill anyone, that was Marcus and Khan. Second, ye made a mistake, lass. It just means ye're human like the rest of us."

"Except I'm not like the rest of you. I'm the captain. Your lives are my responsibility."

"Lass…"

"If there's one thing that I have always known, it's that lives are in my hands. That's why Chris was so pissed at me after Nibiru. I risked Spock's life, then I broke the rules to save him. I did the same thing with Khan. I ran off, dragging you all with me… well, everyone but you because you're way more stubborn than me, and I almost got the whole crew killed," Jim said. "Do you realize how crazy that is? I couldn't do the right thing but you... You quit but you still showed up to save my ass."

"Yea, well, I owed ye one for Delta Vega," Scotty smiled.

"You have never owed me anything."

* * *

4

"I dinnae know ye were leading the mission yerself, Captain. I would've pulled yer gear," Scotty said to Jim when he spotted her talking with Lieutenants Hendorff and Riley outside one of the shuttles.

"I already grabbed it. No biggie," she said with a smile before ordering the two officers to complete some pre-flight tasks. It wasn't the first time she led a landing party on this mission, it wasn't even the tenth, but he was under the impression that she wasn't going on this one.

"I thought the brass wanted ta talk ta ye."

"Bones is gonna talk to Paris on my behalf," Jim said.

"McCoy is gonna talk ta the brass for ye?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. The good doctor is probably the last person in the senior staff that should have conversations with the admirals, even if it is Admiral Paris, who was mostly a female version of Pike… Or was Pike a male version of Paris? They were both badass admirals who took it upon themselves to keep an eye on Jim, the details really didn't matter. "Why?"

"He has the conn," she shrugged.

"Oh," Scotty said before he gave her a look. "Wait. Why does Doctor McCoy have the conn?"

"Because he came up to the bridge bitching about how many people have gotten sick over the past week and insisting that the senior officers don't take the health of the crew seriously. Then he made some comment about how easy my job is, so I told him he could have at it for the duration of this mission. If you have any problems or complaints," Jim put her hands on his shoulders, "and I'm sure you can come up with something, you have to take them to the acting captain."

"That's mean, lass," he chuckled.

It was a little more than mean, actually. Being the captain of any ship, let alone the flagship, was much more involved than she made it look and Jim did a lot of work that nobody -except Spock- even realized. At his father's insistence, Scotty started out at the Academy on the command track, so he knew that everything from evals to inspections to reports for the brass to tactical decisions to diplomacy rested on the young woman's shoulders. Jim, overachiever that she is, also managed to interact with everyone in the crew on a personal level, which was rare for a ship with eleven hundred people serving on it. Frankly, McCoy was in over his head.

"He's the one who bitched out me, Sulu and a bunch of the security guys for exercising too hard a couple days ago, and now he wants everyone to start working out. I swear he can never make up his mind," the captain chuckled.

"He yelled at ye for exercising?"

"Yea. Something about 'too much time fooling around in the gym' after we got a little banged up. It wasn't that big of a deal, some bruises but no bones were broken."

"Well, if no bones were broken," Scotty smiled. "Ye okay, lass?"

"I'm fine."

"And I'm a Klingon."

Jim let out a laugh, "I can just picture it now; you with forehead ridges and running around with a bat'leth. Talk about hilarious."

"I guess it would be," he chuckled. "Ye know he probably dinnae mean anything by it, right?"

"Oh, I know. I just figure that he needs to see some of the work he doesn't know about. Trust me, all it'll take is one day of Spock questioning his decisions and proofreading his paperwork for him to eat his words," she smiled. "Sometimes, I don't know how I don't strangle our half-Vulcan friend myself and I'm much more personable than Bones."

"Ye think McCoy will last a whole day with Spock?" Scotty gave her a look. "Lassie, they cannae be in the same room for more than a few hours without butting heads. I give it six hours or less."

"Would you care to make it interesting, Mister Scott?" she asked.

"What did ye have in mind?"

"You win and I'll take the crappiest engineering detail for a month. You can even order me around."

"Okay. And if ye win, I will part with the twenty-nine-year-old bottle of scotch that I happen ta have in my possession."

"Or we could just drink the scotch and not use it for our childish bet. I would hate for you to lose good booze to the likes of me."

"Overconfident, aren't ye there, lassie?" he asked her. A look crossed her features before she gave him a soft smile.

"Only way to live."

* * *

5

"That looks like it hurts," Scotty told the woman standing next to him, referring to the bruise under her eye.

"It'll heal. They always do," Jim smiled, as big and bright as always, despite the few days they just had.

"I dinnae know what ye're so happy about, lass. It's gonna be a year before we get another Enterprise," he groaned as he looked out at the partially constructed ship.

"Awe, you poor thing. Come to Jimmy," she chuckled and held her arms open. Scotty smiled and decided to play along. The engineer stepped into her embrace, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll find something to hold you over until you can play on the new ship."

"You promise?" Scotty asked, pout and all.

"I promise. When she's all finished, she's gonna have a big, shiny warp core. And you're gonna have all kinds of fun working in the Jefferies tubes. I'll even come down to hang out," Jim chuckled as she held him tight. "We'll work on stuff and do projects and eventually, we'll love her as much as we loved Lady E."

It started out simple enough, an alien popped up on Station Yorktown in a banged-up escape pod asking for help to rescue her lost crew on Altamed, a planet on the other side of an uncharted nebula. The crew of the Enterprise, who had just started their long overdue shore leave, was promptly recalled for the mission. Shortly after they found the planet, the ship was attacked and destroyed while the crew, with a handful of exceptions, was captured. Scotty, using the trick he learned from the Khan/Marcus incident, shot himself out of the ship in a torpedo, avoiding the small ships that were taking the crew hostage.

Some locals, if anyone on that planet could be considered local, tried to attack him after he was on the ground but this lass, Jaylah, came out of nowhere and rescued him. Turns out that she had found -and was living in- the U.S.S. Franklin, Earth's first warp four ship that had been missing for just over a century, which is where he set up shop. Jim and Chekov managed to trip one of Jaylah's traps, then they managed to pick up a comm from Spock and McCoy before they rescued Uhura, Keenser, Sulu and everyone else.

The Enterprise officers managed to get the Franklin off the ground just in time to chase after Krall, who was heading to Yorktown with a superweapon, hell-bent on killing the millions of Federation citizens living on the station. After some crazy piloting by Sulu and -believe it or not- McCoy, not to mention one hell of a fist fight between Jim and Krall, the crew of the Enterprise managed to save Yorktown with minimum loss of life and only a few seconds to spare.

"It's not gonna be the same, lassie," he sighed as he leaned back a little to look at her.

"Story of my life since I was a kid. Step one: find a home. Step two: love your home. Step three: watch some evil asshole wreck your home. Step four: rebuild your home or find a new one. Repeat every few years as necessary," she sighed. "Least I got to give her a last hoorah."

"The lad said ye went back to the ship. Or what was left of her, anyway," he said.

"Yea. Once we figured out that Kalara honey-trapped us, I thought the best way to find the others was to track her comms when she told Krall that she found what he was looking for. Got her to play in my arena," Jim said quietly. So, that's how they knew which region Krall's base was in. "Be glad you didn't see her like that."

"She was a good ship," Scotty said, acknowledging the fact that the Enterprise was gone.

"She was. Watching her go down from inside that pod… I'd rather get irradiated to death again," she admitted. "Don't tell anyone I said that."

"Secret's safe with me, lass," he smiled.

"I really can't put up with much more of this," McCoy muttered from somewhere behind him, reminding the Scot that they weren't alone.

"I should let ye get back ta yer birthday party," Scotty said, taking a step away from her.

"Yea. I'm really glad you're okay, Scotty," Jim smiled before she left him to go talk to her best friend.

"What?" he asked Keenser when he realized that his wee friend was staring at him.

The other engineer just shook his head, "Idiot."

* * *

+1

"Uhh, Scotty," Jim said as she looked up at him. "Hi."

"I'm not disturbing ye, am I, lassie?" he asked as he stood outside her quarters on the Endeavor.

"No, not at all. Come on in," she said stepping away from the door. "I was just doing some paperwork." Jim picked up some of the PADDs littering the couch and floor, then offered him a seat. "What's up?"

"I just wanted ta check on ye," Scotty said, sitting down. "Ye skipped dinner."

"I've been known to do that," Jim smiled. "I'm good. Mostly. I mean, it's weird not having everybody around. Bones, Pasha and Keenser being here helps but it's not the same. What about you?"

"Earth is Earth. San Francisco's a fair bit different but…"

"You hate it. The hum of the warp core and the vibrations of the bulkheads aren't something you can get on Earth," she finished for him. "I don't know why you agreed to take that post."

The crew of the Enterprise was getting a new ship, like Jim promised, but it was still under construction on Yorktown, so they were all assigned other duties. Jim was temporarily in command of the U.S.S. Endeavor after it's captain retired. She -along with McCoy, Chekov and Keenser- joined that crew to head up a year-long survey mission. Spock and Uhura took a sabbatical on New Vulcan. Sulu got the first officer's post on the U.S.S. Concord, taking Hendorff aka Cupcake with him. Scotty the only one who ended up on Earth, teaching at the Academy.

The official reason for his presence on the ship was because he agreed to chaperone a group of first year engineering cadets on their first training cruise. In truth, he was worried about her. Hell, he was worried about all of them. When the shuttles docked with the Endeavor, his friends from the Enterprise were there to welcome him but he had cadets to cajole and his friends had duties to attend to. He'd hoped to see Jim at the little get together that Chekov threw but she was needed elsewhere.

"What else was I gonna do? Ye're the only captain loony enough to take me on," Scotty chuckled. Jim looked at him but she didn't say anything. "Okay, I know that look, lassie. What?"

"It's nothing."

"Oh. When James T. Kirk says it's nothing than that usually means it's something. Spill the beans."

"It's just your choice of words, that's all. Me… being the only one crazy enough to take you on. I… You know what, never mind."

"Dinnae be shy now."

She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear, "You're gonna think it's silly."

"Try me," he said. Scotty's had his share of crazy ideas and she listened to just about all of them, there was no reason he couldn't do the same.

"I've wondered what it would be like to take you on. And I don't mean as your captain," Jim said, her eyes never leaving his. He stared at the otherworldly blue as her words sunk in.

"Surely ye dinnae mean… Me? Ye like me?" Scotty asked in disbelief. Jim was messing with him, she had to be.

"Um, yea. I'm pretty sure you're the only person on the Enterprise who didn't know that. Hell, I'm pretty sure Jaylah knows that too," she told him. "I tried to get your attention for years."

"Me?"

"You see any other sweet, handsome, brilliant engineers in here? Yes, you."

"Huh." He gave her a look, "Really?"

"Yes, really." Jim gave him one of those bright smiles of hers, "God, don't you know that you're are one of a kind, Montgomery Scott? I could swear I told you as much years ago but I guess it bears repeating."

"Wait, ye were flirting with me all this time?"

"All this time," she chuckled. "And Bones says I lack subtlety."

"Why? What in the bloody hell would ye want with me?" That was the question. "Ye could have anyone in the universe, lass."

"Probably," Jim smiled. "I mean, 'hey, I'm Captain Kirk and I saved the world' is a great pick up line and it usually works. Thing is, there's this guy and he's not like anybody I've ever known. That line," she chuckled, "that line doesn't mean anything to him because that guy knows better. He's knows what I'm thinking, sometimes before I even know. He sees me in a way that nobody does. And that feeling I get when he's around… there's nothing like it."

She didn't explain beyond that and she really didn't need to; Scotty understood exactly what she meant. Everyone needs her to be something for them; George Kirk's daughter, Tarsus IV survivor, Christopher Pike's protégé, the captain of the Enterprise, the list goes on and on. None of those things tell the whole story of who Jim is, they're just pieces that contribute to the whole.

No one ever talks about the witty lass who gets lost in classic books or geeks out when she finds original parts for her old motorcycle. They miss her attempts at figuring out McCoy's secret mint julep recipe and the smile on the doctor's face every time she gets close. They don't see her usher Chekov to bed at two in the morning, sounding more like his mother than his captain when she mentions growing boys needing their sleep. Nobody mentions how she convinced Spock and Uhura to teach her Vulcan or how she got Sulu to train her to use his sword. Scotty wasn't even going to think about the nights they sat up talking about upgrades to one system or another.

"Why dinnae ye tell me, lass?"

"I was going to, I really was, but I'm your captain and your friend and I didn't want it to be weird. Then I realized that you don't really see me that way and I've had enough rejection in my life and I didn't wanna add to it. Besides, you started dating Romaine, so I kept my mouth shut."

"What do ye mean, I dinnae see ye that way?" Scotty asked her. Someone would have to be blind, deaf and an idiot not to notice her; James T. Kirk practically had her own gravity.

"You don't have to pretend you like me, Scotty. I'm a big girl," she said with a shrug. "Romaine is a very lucky lady. She…"

"And I are just friends. We always have been," he said. Scotty could understand how someone would think he and Romaine were a couple; they spent a fair bit of time together over the last few years and there used to be some feelings there, mostly on his side. If he thought he was out of his league with the archivist, the captain was on a level all her own. "Ye really like me? Me?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

"No, lassie. I dinnae suppose there is."


End file.
